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Wherever I travel in the world, I carry a few books: Līlā Amṛt, the Bhagavad Gītā, and one called Yoga Darśana or Patañjali Yoga Sūtra. You may call it Patañjali Yoga Śāstra. Śāstra means scripture or literature. In an ex-Yugoslavian language, 'sutra' means tomorrow. So, it is the wisdom and light of tomorrow for you. Just as children are the culture of tomorrow, this is a spirituality of tomorrow. Sūtra is a very good name here. Sūtra means some poems, ślokas. Sūtra also means a thread, a string, like sūtra neti. It means these beautiful ślokas of Patañjali are put together like a garland, in one mālā, on one thread. If you would like to call someone the father of psychology for the modern world, it is Maharishi Patañjali. Patañjali lived before Christ. What you call the 10th commandment in the New Testament, this is from Patañjali. The life of Jesus is missing in some years; nobody knows where he was. All know where he was, but they didn't want to put it in the book. These missing years were when Jesus was traveling through India. He was in Banaras, and they say there is some evidence he wrote there. They say he went to Bhuvaneshwar in eastern India and practiced yoga, learning according to Patañjali to come to samādhi. When you are in nirvikalpa samādhi, the highest level, you don't feel pain in your body. Patañjali said in his first sūtra: "Yogaḥ citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ." It is to withdraw your thoughts from different objects, not only from the outer world but also your inner world. Indriya nigraha: observe first your indriyas and then detach from them also. In Patañjali's Yoga Sūtra, as in the Upaniṣads, there is written Ātmā Cintan: concentrate your thoughts only on one thing—"I am Ātmā, I am not this body." In the second śloka, Patañjali says, "Yogaḥ citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ." Through the practicing of Yoga, you shall control your citta vṛttis. We who give commentary on it can turn it in another direction: without success in yoga, your citta vṛtti cannot be controlled. Without controlling citta vṛtti, your yoga sādhana will not be successful. Your yoga sādhana will be successful when you can control the citta vṛtti. Chitta is our consciousness, our spirit, which all the time links our soul to certain objects and feelings, desires: my body, my thoughts, my mind, my friends, my wealth, my everything. So the first technique given in yoga, in Vedānta—in Advaita Vedānta—is this. There is a school, a Śāstra, a philosophy called Dvaitavāda. Dvaitavāda means dualism. They believe in duality. They don't say "Eko Brahmaditya Nasti." They don't say the Saṁsāra is unreal. So there is a duality. They prove the duality, like you and me. Saying, "Me and God, oh Lord, help me," is already duality. We pray to him as a second person; it is a duality. Vedānta, Advaita Vedānta, says non-dualism, non-duality, which is proved by the Ādiguru Śaṅkarācārya. So you have to study, as a yoga teacher, the Brahma Sūtra, which is rewritten and modified by Śaṅkarācārya. If you have not read these, then you cannot say you are a yoga teacher. The Brahma Sūtra, I hope, is available in English. Vivekacūḍāmaṇi is also translated into English and German. Aprokṣaṇāvatī is very small. One German philosopher said that if one great thinker was ever incarnated in humanity till now, it is Śaṅkarācārya. That is Advaita Vedānta. Vedānta means Vedas, Anta means the end, the last. You may say the essence of the Vedas. From the Vedas comes the essence, the Upaniṣads, and from this essence is the Vedānta. The Bhagavad Gītā is the essence of the Upaniṣads, taken from the Vedas and Upanishads and made into a book. It was not exactly this instruction on the battlefield that the Bhagavad Gītā is saying. Hori Gurujī used to say, "Who knows Kṛṣṇa knows what is Bhagavad Gītā." Only one who knows Krishna knows what is the Bhagavad Gītā, and only the mother knows who is the father. Yes, the truth. Therefore, many things are called Ātmā Cintan. Ātmā Cintan means "I am the ātmā. I am not the body. I am not the senses. I am not the mind. I am not the memory. I am not this. I am Ātmā." This is the first level of your meditation, your spiritual development. This means you detach from everything. So vṛtti is citta vṛtti nirodha. Here your citta vṛtti nirodha begins. Then second is ātmā anubhūti. After this level, when you finish your ātmā cintan, then comes ātmā anubhūti. Anubhuti means experiences, the glimpse of the ātmā you receive. At that time, you are completely detached from the vṛttis and body. So when Jesus was crucified, he went through this yoga technique to make the ātmā cintan: "I am not the body." You can see, you can feel the body suffering. Of course, the body is living; there is prāṇa, there is a function of the brain, a function of the heart, everything. But when you are detached from this, then you see as a witness, but you don't feel. With modern technology, in modern allopathic medicine, they have proved it. They give you an injection of anesthesia for an operation on your hand. They give local anesthesia, and you see them cut, the needle goes in, they take something out, they put it again, everything is bleeding, a big deep wound. But you don't feel because that consciousness is now disconnected. This medicine has disconnected your feeling of the prāṇa from there. The prāṇa is put into the level of the "I am," the ātmā. So, "I am Ātmā." The missing life of Jesus was that he was in India, somewhere in Orissa or Bhubaneswar. He went, he mastered and got the samādhi knowledge. Of course, people are telling many things. They even discovered the grave of Jesus in the Himalayas, somewhere in Kashmir—that after the crucifixion, when his mother took him and after some recovery, he left Israel and went through. In the Himalayas, they said they proved it, but this is another subject, not our subject today. So the subject is citta vṛtti nirodha. Every yoga teacher—the whole world, all yoga teachers, it doesn't matter if they are from Yoga in Daily Life or others—should know Patañjali's teaching. To realize more and become more clear, they should know the teaching of Śaṅkarācārya. Now, there is something: always, some extremist comes out of this. There are some who developed that Vedānta, saying, "I am Ātmā, I don't need this, I don't need that." Yet, Śaṅkarācārya, at the highest level of his consciousness, sang one bhajan: "Cidānanda Rūpa, Śivo'ham, Śivo'ham." No mother, no father, no master, no disciple, no death, no janma, no eating, no food, and no one who is eating; and also, there is no one who is suffering. This song is based on the ātmā, not on this body. Ātmā is unborn, and therefore ātmā has no mother, no father, and ātmā is never involved in karma. Your jīvātmā, the soul, is individual. It doesn't matter how many humans, that many souls. Every child is born with one soul. Every animal, every small creature, every bacterium, has also a soul inside, and ātmā, both. So the soul is individual; the soul is not the Self. The soul is a creation of ātmā, anātmā—a miśraṇ, a mixer, a reflection of the ātmā. Like you look at your face in a mirror, it's a reflection of the soul, ātmā, but it's an ātmā unreality from the karmas. So there are many souls which are coming and going. When we will be free from both karmas, good and bad—when there will be no bad karmas at all, no sins at all, only good karma—then this good karma will dissolve, and you become Brahman again one day. So ātmā is jise śāstra kāṭe na, agni jalāve bujhāve na, pāni na, mṛti na mitāve. No weapon can kill, no fire can burn, water cannot wet, and air cannot dry, and death cannot take away. Nityam śuddham nirākāram nitya bodhaṁ cidānandam. Nityam, everlasting. Bodham, the knowledge. So ātmā anubhūti comes through the citta vṛtti nirodha; you come to the cintanā. The cintanā comes from the citta, and vṛtti is cintanā, meaning "I am the ātmā." Endure your pain. Endure the unpleasantness of the body situation. I know that the body is suffering, the body is very weak, everything, but I am the ātmā. So chintan, chintan, and chintā. Chintā means sorrows. When you have a very great, big sorrow, then you forget all your other sorrows. This sorrow is also sorrow. That's called chintā, but we don't want chintā, we want chintan. Chintā is your problem sorrow: you lost something, or this and that. Many sorrows. Who has no sorrows? Is there someone who has no sorrows? Congratulations. We are very rich with sorrows. Cintā is that. Even the sorrow: "I am not the sorrow. I am not this. I am not this, but I am the..." This is a concentration trial. You are doing a trial, and of course, try, try... and try, you will be successful again and again. Very soon, Olympia will come, and you will see different kinds of games. You will see some people, bodybuilders, holding like this and coming up only with the arm and then going up and with one hand moving. My God, we cannot move even with both hands and both legs; we will fall down. All these little girls, they are jumping on one beam of wood. No, we don't win. If we jump, we can do it twice: first time and last time. Out of that chintan, you get experiences. Then the first success comes. The second time, also the third time, you fall down. Again you try, and you are getting it. Now you are becoming a master. Finally, the third level comes: Ātmā Bodha. Bodha means knowledge. Anubhuti is experiences, the glimpse. And Bodha, now you have the knowledge: "I am the Ātmā." This is the aim of every yoga teacher. Concentrate on your sādhanā. Concentrate on your discipline. It's not that you are a very good teacher and you have 20 students or 200 students or 5,000 students. That has no meaning personally for yourself. Okay, you have some financial support, you have many friends, many are practicing. That's all. But after this, you die. Have nothing, anything. What meaning, what did you gain personally? That's it. So, all our teachings—this is a theory—but as our yoga teachers, we should know the practice and anubhūti: ātmā anubhūti and ātmā bodha through the ātmā cintana. So, Patañjali you shall read again and again, and you will always get beautiful inspiration, information, knowledge. That's called a kāmadhenu, a cow which ever and ever gives milk. So don't worry if you have taken milk and the milk is spoiled. Don't worry. Again, you can milk it. That cow always gives fresh milk. That cow is your buddhi, your intellect. Always will come new, always will come beautiful and fresh ideas, fresh wisdom. This Patañjali or Līlāmṛta or Upaniṣad or Bhagavad Gītā or Śaṅkarācārya's works—read the authentic literatures. Now it is written by many, psychologically different this and that, and you say, "Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah." That's a waste of time. So, "Citta vṛtti nirodha," Patañjali said. When your citta vṛtti is controlled, when your citta vṛtti is concentrated on one point, that time the draṣṭā—you are the draṣṭā who sees—that time that draṣṭā realizes he is formed, ātmā sthita. That time you are established in yourself through yoga, chittavṛtti nirodha. And before that, discipline: ātma-yoga-anuśāsanam. So if you are a serious yoga teacher and you really would like to lead your disciples or students to some higher level, then get the Śāstras in your mind. Follow these Vākyas from the great realized persons. We don't have to work anything; they already worked for us. They gave us everything; they served us only. Now we have to sit and eat, that's all. Everything is available. They put it so. Our ancestors were very rich, very, very rich. We have only one biggest obstacle, a very big obstacle, a very, very big obstacle: we don't know Sanskrit and Hindi. If you learn or come to know Sanskrit or Hindi, you will say, "My God, this is India." I went now to Bangalore. There's one very nice Gurukul school, and Avatāpurī will be there in the school for 13 years. They showed me the libraries written on palm tree leaves, thousands of years old, and it was so beautiful. What have they been teaching in 13 years? I think when Avatāpurī will be after 13 years, I have to keep Mauna. And that's not only for him. If someone would like to do it, I will manage for you to go there to school for 13 years, but it's strict. The rooms are about three by four meters. Five boys sleeping inside on the floor with a small, thin mat. Your yoga mat is too thick, and one salt, like medicine salt, for covering or a pillow, whatever you like. Very traditional, like old times. They said comfort will spoil you. As many comforts, that means you lost many things. Avatāpurī was with me, and I told him, "This is your bed." He said, "Is there no pillow, Swami?" I said, "No, there is no pillow." So, of course, if someone would like to study... Though Avatāpurī is now in the fifth class, they will take him from the first class, beginner. One year is only alphabet knowledge. Second year is only the words of knowledge. Third year is to put the words together in language, and the fourth year, then comes the poetry, and then the ślokas, and then comes the śāstras, the six śāstras. They don't have Vedānta because this is a school of duality, dvaitas, but they teach. There is also the Advaita, and they said that for Avatāpurī, specially, they will organize the teachings of the other Vedas and English separately. So you are all welcome if you want to study, but discipline. There is no Swamiji like Yoga in Daily Life, half hour, very strict. It will be very, very great, very well, and no outgoing from the main door. You can't go out. No visitors, no telephones, no handy. So you will be behind. After 13 years, you will see what kind of handies are there. Maybe the handies will be small like a little bug button. Who knows in 13 years where technology will be? So knowledgeable. And when you know this language, you will say, "What India is, I can tell you." I like the whole world, and every whole world has great things, but you can't defeat India in any way. It is like diamonds full of dust on it, because even the Indians are polluted by the English language, and they said, "English, there is no wisdom inside." Therefore, our biggest obstacle is that language. But still there are some śāstras which are translated. One ācārya there said only to translate one "yogaḥ citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ" exactly will need six months to find the correct words and search all the śāstras for what it is in other language. To say "Chitta vṛtti nirodha, control the thoughts," is nothing. But you know the svarūpa and many, many things of the thoughts and this and that. That's what I want: that our Yoga in Daily Life teachers are great philosophers, great spiritual lights in this world, and not a kind of PIT. Are you a PIT? No? PTI. That's it, PTI, physical training instructor. Then we will understand what is yoga, very great. Then you will have these instructions. I will ask professors from there to call them once a year, or twice a year for ten days to give a lecture on a certain subject. That's a good idea. But you have to be a real disciple, you have to be very honest, correct? Many are playing tricks with Swāmījī, many tricks. Then Swāmījī also plays a trick with you. Hari Om. So first, you have to become surrendered and be clear, and decide that yes, you want to follow the Swāmījī. That's all, that's very important. Otherwise, Hari Om Tat Sat. That is called the wisdom. It is so much there. At some stage, I was thinking, "I will also stay there." But then I looked to the Holy Guru, and the Holy Guru said, "That's all." The Holy Guru said, you know, "Mahesh finished." I don't know, but he said, you know, anytime I asked him for some advice, he said, you know what? To do for you, that's all. And he took his mālā and closed his eyes. So well, if I will... 13 years, I retired myself. I don't know if I will steal a life, because getting a body is coming to its borders. So that time, then you are solid, stabilized, sure in your svarūpa, in your reality. When the chitta vṛtti is controlled, tadā draṣṭāḥ—that time you are the draṣṭā. That time when all vṛttis are controlled, all sorrows and this and that. But we have so many vṛttis, and especially when we meditate, so many vṛttis come always. This morning I didn't feel so good physically, but I closed my eyes and my vṛttis were here. I don't know what Muktāmaṇī will answer. Oh God, and what people will learn? Maybe she answered something different. I hope they will not ask her so many questions. So I was, all the time the Vṛttis were here. In one stage, I wanted to call and say she should only give one lecture about Neem, and that's all. But mentally, she got some thoughts, no? She talked about Neem, no? Neem is very good. So, Svarūpeṇa Avasthānam. That is, he is Svarūpa. Avasthā means the condition in that Ātmā. And so, Patañjali Yogasūtra is available, I think, in English from Gita Press Gorakhpur, very nice from Swami Umananda. I will make it available for you if you want, yes. All these books I shall make available for you. Know where are you going to? Search, maybe you will get from Einstein and from Dumanand. Dumanand means the stupid one. Deep Narayan Bhagwan Kī. Deveshwar Mahadeva Kī. Madhav Krishna Bhagwan Kī. Sanatan Dharma Kī.